I ran across this article and just had to laugh. (oh yeah, word for word on the network)

Ok; the article was intended to be serious. They claim that various car's odometers can be up to 2% high causing lawsuits.

Then I ran across this:
"Over the lifetime of your car, or the lifetime of your lease or your warranty, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of miles that are being stripped off of those cars that they've never been driven," Holmes said.
Does anybody else have a 5 million mile warranty?

And, following the link I also see this:
While older, mechanically driven odometers often had errors of +/-4%, modern odometers should not.
Why not?

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Because they are modern.

Modern is good.

Modern is our friend.



"HA! I . . . . (slapping hands on chest) . . . have made fire!"



But seriously, if you want to cheat on the odometer, just get taller tires. Really big ones should make a considerable difference. Think Bigfoot. The handling may go to pot, but imagine the underreporting of miles if you put some humongously tall (bead to tread) rubber on your rims. And I imagine you'd add some speed to the top end to boot.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Just drive to the dealer in reverse. By the time you get there, you'll be back under the limit.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

That only works with mechanical odometers. Electronic ones count upward in both directions.

Edit: Besides, if the car don't go...how do I drive it.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I drive a 2005, so I assume it's modern. The GPS thinks it's 40.3 miles from home to work, the car thinks it's 38.5. I get 4.46% off, but may have done it wrong. Anyway, it boils down to me getting an extra 4,000 miles or so out of the warranty. I think he may have meant hundreds OR thousands of miles.

BTW, The spedometer reads 3 MPH over at what it thinks is 80 mph. Shouldn't it read under if the odometer is short, or do I have that backwards?

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

That's my assumption, but it's still sloppy work, and should have been caught especially considering the fact that it changes the meaning so much.
I picture it this way. If the speedometer is reading faster than the car is going, then the wheels are smaller than what the speedometer is calibrated for. Therefore the wheels are turning more than it was designed to, therefore registering more miles.
So yes, reading 3 over does mean you are more miles than it should.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I have a 2001 Honda CR/V. Driving around town, there are these mobile devices the police set up that display my speed as I pass by. These are typically in neighborhoods or near new construction zones where speeding is a problem.

In every case, the device shows me going 3-4 MPH slower than my speedometer indication. If those devices are accurate (big if), then my speedometer is not only reading fast, my odometer is probably showing that I'm going a longer distance than what I'm actually driving. As the article implied, this would've affected my warranty (now expired) and potentially my resale value. Instead of having 71,000 miles on the car, I may have actually only driven it about 68,000 miles. I need to find a precise distance to measure my odometer accuracy and/or find out the accuracy of those speed monitoring devices.

That's the way I picture it too, but it's going the other way. Speedometer is over, odometer is under. Which confirms my suspicion that it's a really poor excuse for a vehicle.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

I've experienced that also, but my odometer seems correct. The best thing to do, is go on a long trip, and compare the odometer with the highway mile markers.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

OLD mechanical odometers. I had occassion to drive my mother's 1998 Geo Metro in reverse for a substantial stretch once, it did not roll back.

Hmmmm, I do sense a conspiracy.

My speedometer registers 3 MPH over in the radar traps also. (When the radar gun says I'm going 45, my speedometer says I'm doing 45).

That's overreporting miles to the tune of 6.66%! I say we file a class action suit against all automobile manufacturers. With a number like that we should be able to pull in support from PAL (Paranoid Antichrist Lobby). I hear they have big connections on The Hill.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

For my next amazing prediction, I see an edit here soon.

What? What? What'd I say?

__________________
Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Read it a few more times.

__________________
Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Hee hee hee.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Shiver me timbers.

First I needed a knee brace, then the reading glasses. I've now hit the age where 45 plus 3 equals 45. Fabulous. I suppose I better quit making fun of the astronaut that wore diapers on the long road trip.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

With the tires I currently have on my pickup, the odometer shows 100 km for every 104 km that I actually travel.

A quarter inch of tread wear on that vehicle translates into about a 2% difference in distance measured.

Hahaha , you guys are funny.

Odometers are odometers.
Unless wife checks your odometer and computes , and asks where have you been with that kind of reading?

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Jean
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"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einsteiin

. . . hundreds of thousands of miles. . .

I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and attribute that to a typo. Perhaps they meant to write "hundreds or thousands".


Odometers are odometers.
Unless wife checks your odometer and computes , and asks where have you been with that kind of reading?

Yeah, I know you're joking, but. . .

. . . . what if you care whether the instrument is reliable?

. . . . what if part of your pay is based on odometer readings and you're paying for the fuel etc? A 4% difference is about $700 to my bottom line each year.